Skeeter is the name of my project intending to result in an Amiga Laptop computer. Skeeter is not a laptop, and is not an Amiga, but can be either and both. Using an industry standard modular computer form factor allows a PowerPC module (Amiga OS4 requires PowerPC) to fit in a variety of user cases such as ATX, MiniITX, FlexATX, and hopefully a laptop as well as whatever industrial/embedded forms that might be desirable. So a single module can serve those who want a big-box computer with lots of expansion slots, and also serve someone that wants a small compact case like MiniITX, and hopefully a laptop.
Standard computer module form factors
Q Seven uses thel aptop graphics board MXM connector. This gives Q Seven a potential advantage over most others, in that it could be used with a straddlemount MXM connector and thus be parallel to the carrier motherboard, saving some Z dimension. Though I'm not sure such a straddlemount MXM connector exists. And Q Seven lacks feature pins available in other formats here and wherever, and is intended for very low power consumption so it might not meet what I desire of my laptop Amiga anyway.
ETX Older standard with PCI32, lacks SATA, PCI_Express, and other more modern features.
XTX is a modification to ETX standard to remove antiquated features and replace them with SATA and PCI_Express in the carrier connectors.
COM Express (aka ETX-Express) Now on revision 2 of the standard to include USB3 SuperSpeed configurations. There's a number of different module types in COM-Express, I'd go with Type 6 at this point, which begins to exist in Rev 2. Previous to Type 6, I would have gone with Type 2 out of popularity in existing carrier motherboards, or type 3 that seems like it'd be more useful to PowerPC folks with more ethernet ports instead of IDE/PATA. I'm concerned about how tall this system is in the Z dimension, that it would lead to a "thick" and ugly laptop. See the Carrier Design Guide . Order COM.0 R2.0 spec from PICMG for $95 as non-member. See some example Com-Express carriers and PowerPC Com-Express Modules.
ESM-Express also sounds similar to COM-Express, but is intended for extreme environments and is fully enclosed by shielding with "cooling ears" to help dissipate heat into the cooling enclosure. They also have an ES-Mini version, though I think that is too small for what I want to include for a PowerPC system. These may also suffer from Z dimension thickness.
Core Express is also rather small, and I'm not sure it provides enough features that I desire, and may also suffer from Z dimension thickness.
Plenty of others out there.
Tools and kits
JTAG Debuggers
Abatron BDI3000 JTAG debugger - is rather expensive, but something like this is really necessary for board debug and firmware debug.
Etoolsmiths GuardianSE JTAG debugger - also rather expensive, I'm led to believe it's no longer available. This is the one I have though, but I wish I'd got the BDI3000 instead. Etoolsmiths told me they never did release support for 86xx PowerPCs from Freescale as promised when I purchased the debugger. >:( I'd say avoid these guys and go with Abatron.
PCI-Express
PLX Tech PEX8111 PCI to PCI-Express bridge RDK REVERSE board. PCI-Express Gen1. Plugs into PCI32 slot and provides a PCI-Express x1 slot (physical x16 plastic). I plug my switch eval board into this.
PLX Tech PEX8618 PCI-Express switch RDK 8618AA-AIC4U4D, configuration moduls 0107 and 0108. PCI-Express Gen2. Plugs into a x4 slot and provides 4 slots of x4 each. And Breakout board 1111 plugs into one of these x4 slots, splitting the lanes into four slots of x1 each. This gives a lot of PCI-Expres slots to play with for uboot coding/debug and testing/writing drivers for various peripheral chips.
Resources
Battery University has information about charging batteries, chemistries, and all sorts of stuff. I have not yet figured out of charging circuit is part of motherboard or inside battery pack.
AMD Embedded Developer Support site gives specs for many chips and example schematic designs and layouts, with some footprints in Orcad format. AmigaOne X1000 got around quicker than I did about proving SB600 can be used. There's also a link in there somewhere to embedded graphics group for embedded class Radeon chips (mostly somewhat older mobile graphics chips).
PLX Technologies PCI-Express switches to fanout small number of PCI-Express ports in most PowerPC SoC chips to many slots/chips. While other vendors have PCIe switches, PLX devices seem to have the most versatility in number of ports and different port sizes. Provides datasheets and Orcad symbol/footprint files.
Skeeter (Amiga Laptop)
Skeeter is the name of my project intending to result in an Amiga Laptop computer. Skeeter is not a laptop, and is not an Amiga, but can be either and both. Using an industry standard modular computer form factor allows a PowerPC module (Amiga OS4 requires PowerPC) to fit in a variety of user cases such as ATX, MiniITX, FlexATX, and hopefully a laptop as well as whatever industrial/embedded forms that might be desirable. So a single module can serve those who want a big-box computer with lots of expansion slots, and also serve someone that wants a small compact case like MiniITX, and hopefully a laptop.
Standard computer module form factors
Tools and kits
Resources